Since 1999, FARM’s Sabina Fund has partnered with nearly 150 grassroots organizations across the world by awarding small grants to support their efforts to promote a plant-based diet and animal rights. The Fund honors the memory of FARM President Alex Hershaft’s mother, Sabina. These small grants have produced amazing efforts by creative, dedicated folks who donate their time, talent, and tenacity and require only minimal seed grants to help get their projects started.
From Portland to Chicago, from Israel to Germany and from Nigeria to Croatia, organizations have been making huge strides in educating the public on the plight of animals through grassroots activism. Every year, FARM receives upwards of 100 applications from eager groups around the world.
Each month in 2012, we will be highlighting a project that FARM has partnered with. For a complete list of organizations and projects we supported in 2011, please click here.
Humane Research Council Evaluates Vegan Literature
In late 2011, FARM partnered with VegFund and the prestigious Humane Research Council (HRC), located in Washington State, by offering the remainaing funding necessary to conduct a study relevant to the entire global animal protection movement. HRC’s team of research and communications professionals assessed the readability of 11 popular vegan educational booklets from nine different organizations. They understood that the number of pamphlets we hand out does not matter if the public is unable to read and understand the material.
Based on six readability tests, the average readability scores ranged from a low reading level of 11th grade to a high of 15th grade (beyond college level). In contrast, the average U.S. adult has a 9th or 10th grade reading level and 44% of U.S. adults have an 8th grade reading level or lower. These results revealed that the animal rights movement is writing materials for a higher reading level than the average citizen is capable of comprehending. HRC concluded that animal advocacy materials should be developed at a 7th or 8th grade reading level, using short sentences and smaller words, to ensure they speak to the majority of readers.
For us at FARM, this has reminded us that our message always needs to be able to resonate with the widest possible audience. Every sentence that requires the reader to pause or read-over is creating a barrier to change. Our goal is to achieve results on a large scale, which in this case means like our audience, not like animal advocates.
For more information on the study and to view the entire report, please click here.
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